a Wordlywoman publication

Main menu

Tag Archives: trust

When my children were young, I asked them to learn to become monitors of themselves. As a parent, I wanted them to become aware of their surroundings and their feelings so that they could keep themselves safe while away from home. I wanted them to think for themselves because I would not always be there to do it for them. I asked them to notice their behaviors and monitor if they were being appropriate in situations. I knew they would act a certain way around their friends, but they needed to learn to adjust those actions when out in public. It was important for them to learn boundaries and respect for others. I also told them to trust their feelings and if they were at someone’s home and felt uncomfortable, that they could take the steps they needed to remove themselves from the situation. I wanted them to learn to trust their higher voice, to be able to monitor their emotions and use them as guides.

I was once given the following article to help me to find my way through a time of change. I think this article gives an interesting perspective. Enjoy.

FEAR OF TRANSFORMATION

From The Essene Book of Days by Danaan Parry

Sometimes I feel that my life is a series of trapeze swings. I’m either hanging on to a trapeze bar swinging along or for a few moments in my life or I’m hurtling across space in between trapeze bars.

Most of the time, I spend my life hanging on for dear life to my trapeze-bar-of-the-moment. It carries me along at a certain steady rate of swing and I have the feeling that I’m in control of my life. I know most of the right questions and even some of the right answers. But once in a while, as I’m merrily (or not so merrily) swinging along, I look out ahead of me into the distance and what do I see? I see another trapeze bar swinging towards me. It’s empty and I know, in that place in me that knows that this “new trapeze bar” has my name on it. It is my next step, my growth, my aliveness coming to get me. In my heart-of-hearts I know that for me to grow, I must release my grip on the present, well-known bar to move to the next one.

Each time it happens to me, I hope (no, pray) that I won’t have to grab the new one. But in my knowing place I know that I must totally release my grasp on my old bar and, for some moment in time, I must hurtle across space before I can grab onto the new bar. Each time I am filled with terror. It doesn’t matter that in all my previous hurtles across the void of knowing I have always made it. Each time I am afraid that I will miss, that I will be crushed on unseen rocks in the bottomless chasm between the bars. But I do it anyway. Perhaps this is the essence of what the mystics call the faith experience. No guarantees, no net, no insurance policy, but you do it anyway because somehow to keep hanging on to that old bar is no longer on the list of alternatives. And so for an eternity that can last a microsecond or a thousand lifetimes, I soar across the dark void of “the-past-is-gone, the-future-is-not-yet-here.” It is called transition. I have come to believe that it is the only place that real change occurs. I mean REAL change, not the pseudo-change that only lasts until the next time my old buttons get punched.

I have noticed that, in our culture, this transition zone is looked upon as a “nothing”, a no-place between places. Sure, the old trapeze-bar was real, and that new one coming toward me, I hope that’s real too. But the void between? That’s just a scary, confusing, disorienting “nowhere” that must be gotten through as fast and as unconsciously as possible. What a waste! I have a sneaking suspicion that the transition zone is the only real thing, and the bars are illusions we dream up to avoid the void, where the real change, the real growth occurs for us. Whether or not my hunch is true, it remains that the transition zones in our lives are incredibly rich places. They should be honored, even savored. Yes, with all the pain and fear and feelings of being out-of-control that can (but not necessarily do) accompany transitions; they are still the most alive, most growth-filled, passionate, expansive moments in our lives.

And so transformation of fear may have nothing to do with making fear go away but rather with giving ourselves permission to “hang-out” in the transition between trapeze bars. Transforming our need to grab that new bar is allowing ourselves to dwell in the only place where change really happens. It can be terrifying. I can also be enlightening in the true sense of the word. Hurtling through the void, we just may learn how to fly.